HITCHCOCK AND CHASE — NORTH AMEEICAN PANICUM. 



57 



21. Panicum gattingeri Nash. 



Panicum capillare tampestre Gattinger, Tenn. Fl. 94. 1887, not P. campestre Nees, 

 1826. No definite locality in Tennessee is given. In the Gattinger Herbarium are 



four specimens very much alike labeled "Panicum 

 capillare L. var. campestre Gattinger" in Gattinger V 

 hand. The specimen with the following data is chosen 

 as the type: "Cedar glades near Nashville, Sept. A 

 Gattinger." 



Panicum capillare geniculatum Scribn. in Kearney, 

 Bull. Torrey Club 20: 447. 1893, not P. geniculatum 

 Lam. 1798, "In the neighborhood of Wasiota, " [Bell 

 County, Kentucky]. No type is indicated. Kearney 

 (on page 479) lists numbers 317, 335, 378, 497 as P. 

 capillare geniculatum. A sheet of Kearney's no. 378, col- 

 lected near Wasiota, Bell County, Kentucky, in 1893, in the National Herbarium, and 

 evidently the only one of the cited series examined by Scribner, is taken as the type. 

 Panicum capillare gattingeri Nash in Britt. & Brown, Illust. Fl. 1: 123. 1896. Based 

 on P. capillare campestre Gattinger. 



Panicum gattingeri Nash in Small, Fl. Southeast U. S. 92 and 1327. 1903. Based 

 on P. capillare campestre Gattinger. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Fig. 



—P. gattingeri. From. 

 type specimen. 



Plants at first erect, but soon decumbent-spreading and rooting at the lower nodes, 

 freely branching from the lower and middle nodes; culms papillose-hispid, in robust 

 specimens as much as 1 meter in length; sheaths hispid like the culms; blades 10 to 20 

 cm. long, 6 to 10 mm. wide, narrow to a rounded base, more or less hispid on both 

 surfaces or nearly glabrous; panicles numerous, terminating the culms and main 

 branches and auxiliary at most of the nodes, short-exserted or, especially the axillary, 

 included at base, oval or elliptic in outline, the terminal 10 to 15 cm. long, two-thirds 

 as wide, the lateral smaller, rather densely flowered, the branches ascending or tardily 

 spreading; spikelets shorter-pediceled than in P. capillare and more turgid, 2 mm. 

 long, 0.9 to 1 mm. wide, elliptic; first glume about two-fifths as long as the spikelet, 

 acute or blunt; second glume and sterile lemma equal, 5-nerved, but slightly exceed- 

 ing the fruit, the palea of the sterile floret wanting; fruit 1.6 mm. long, 0.8 mm. wide, 

 elliptic. 



This species differs from P. capillare in the branching, spreading habit, and the 

 numerous panicles, oval in outline and 

 less diffuse, produced from all the 

 nodes. The spikelets in P. gattingeri 

 are not so variable in length as in the 

 other species in this group. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Open ground and waste places, often 

 a weed in cultivated soil, Pennsyl- 

 vania to Iowa and Missouri, south to 

 North Carolina and Tennessee. 



This is the form introduced into 

 South Africa and described by Stapf 

 as P. capillare. a 



Ontario: Kingston, Fowler in 1897 (Field Mus. Herb.) 

 Pennsylvania: Lancaster County, Heller in 1901. 



Fig. 39.— Distribution of P. gattingeri. 



a Dyer, Fl. Cap. 7: 407. 1898. 



